Rating: 
Summary: Amazon good, product atrocious
Review: I want to preface my comments with kudos for Amazon's superb customer service. After the first unit I received choked within 20 minutes of playback, Amazon rushed me out a replacement the very next day by expensive air freight to ensure that I would have it by the holidays. Alas, the replacement encountered the same playback problems. Read the reviews and stay away, FAR AWAY, from this product! With a list price of $849, wouldn't you expect quality? I'm going to return this for a similarly priced Panasonic. Amazon doesn't need its excellent reputation sullied by inferior merchandise. Note: the rating is one star only because we're not allowed to put zero!
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Value
Review: I have only used this camcorder for 2 weeks, but so far have found it easy to use and perfectly reliable. The free tripod is fine and it works great with my other cameras too. The camera bag is about right sized and I can squeeze my 35mm "old" camera in there too. No complaints, no problems and it has all the features I want and I am especially happy with the price.
Rating:
Summary: Camera had NO sound on play back
Review: Ordered the Camera, read the manual, recorded by first tape, played it back and NO sound. Re-read the manual and decided to return the camera. Picture was good. But the manual says that the camera comes with DV port, but it does not on the model I was sent. Return was easy, printed out the return label and took it to the Post Office, at no cost to me. I generally think that Amazon.com is a very good company to deal with. I would have liked to have kept the camera, but feel that when one thing is broken, other things will follow.
Rating: 
Summary: You get what you pay for.
Review: Let's not get too caught up in bashing a product that is more then half the price of its competitors. Did anyone who bought this product expect it to be the best on the market: No! It's a low end digital camcorder for a great price. Not to mention I find it to be pretty good quality and a lot of fun to use. If you want a digital camcorder and are not willing to spend a lot of money, buy this one. It is worth the price.
Rating:
Summary: Twice bitten, that's enough for me
Review: I recently ordered this camera in November and had the same problems with two of them. The first camera came in, read entire manual, and began using it. When I played it back, it was pixelized blobs (to quote a previous reviewer) over and over on the playback. So I returned it and requested a replacement. I used the replacement camera last night to tape a X-Mas party. When I started playing the tape back this morning, the first five minutes were OK, then it was pixelized blobs again. This camera has great features for the price, but I learned the hard way you get what you pay for. This time I'm getting a refund and I will look at the Digital8 products from Sony since they are the main digital cameras with over 20X optical zoom. I chose the Sharp due to price, but unfornately the quality wasn't there.
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera for the price. Cna't beat it
Review: I bought this item not sure if it would be good, but thought that the price was great...I don't think you'll find a better camcorder for even several hundred dollars more. I had a Sony Camcorder I bought about 5 years ago and had nothing but constant trouble with it. I'll never buy another Sony product. This sharp has lots of great features for the price. I do find that it is slightly uncomfortable to hold and the menu system takes a little getting used to, but the picture quality and other digital features are top notch (compared to my old 8mm). The smart card feature for taking still photos is awesome. A digital still camera and a digital camcorder for (...)...unbelivable. For general purpose use for family holidays and vacations...It's perfect. You won't be using this camera for making hollywood movies, but hey, it wasn't (expensive) either.
Rating:
Summary: Stinks
Review: I bought one new from best buy as a gift for my wife. My wife waited several days to test it. She later told me that she was having trouble with it. I just assumed she couldn't figure it out. So a couple of weeks went by before I had a chance to look at it. The thing would only play if you pushed start than stop about ten times before it would play. It would record fine otherwise. So after several weeks I took it back to Best Buy(Worst Buy), they said they thought I just wasn't connecting it properly to the tv. So I tried it again at home still not playing. I took it back to best buy. A different guy looked at it and said it was (messed)up. So they shipped it for repairs. It took almost seven weeks to get it back. Meanwhile I missed hallowween and thanksgiving(I have a 2 yearold and a 3 yearold-not good with the wife to miss these on tape!).
Rating: 
Summary: Its an ok camera, if you like it to break a lot
Review: I bought this camera, because it had a lot of features, great price, and seemed like a solid camera. It arrived a couple days later, and for the first few days it worked great. Then, when I tried to record a football game, it gave me the "dirty video heads" warning, and the playback of the tape was all random blobs of pixels! The manual said dirty tape heads is caused by a dirty tape, but I was using the same brand-new sony MiniDV tape. I called tech support, and they said I have to buy a cleaning tape for $(...) to fix it. Luckily, I borrowed my friend's and it is working again. Im going to send it back for the PVDV-51, which was my second choice. And why is the resolution only 480,000 pixels??? it looks really bad when recording anything but brightly lit areas, so it's not very versatile at all. and the free tripod, camera bag, and lens cleaning kit offer? dont be fooled. The camera bag is tiny, and the tripod is horrible. The mounting screw dislodged the first time i used it, and I had to spend 15 minutes trying to get the camera off of the tripod! I bought it because the average amazon rating was 4 stars, but then i saw it drop with reviews of people with the same tape-related issues at me.
Rating:
Summary: Very good buy -- if you set your expectation right!
Review: I heard many good and bad about this digital camcorder. I still got this one because it provides a very good deal for a digital camera. I did not have problem so far! To buy this and enjoy it, first you must set your expectation right! This is not a fancy camcorder, but works well. It cames w/ all the cables you need. It's digital zoom is good (better than some Sony, JVC one I saw in Best Buy). It has almost 80% of functions you need compare to a high price model. The question is: do you like to pay double the price just to get some 20% more features? To me, this is a very good buy.
The only complain I have is there is a place to add a microphone, but I can not add a light during dark situation! (option not available) Well, my expection is not high and it suffice my need. It is a very good buy for me! No complaint!
Rating:
Summary: Best Value
Review: I was all set to buy the Sony TRV230 Digital8 when the rebate for this model came along and caught my attention. I was upgrading from 8mm. Consumer Reports rates this mini-DV's picture (actually the model 250's) the lowest of all tested mini-DV's, BUT higher than any Hi8/VHSC. My first experience was bad. I bought 4 TDK standard grade tapes from Best Buy. Three of the four tapes had such bad dropout that at many times only half the screen was normal, the rest was unintelligible and the sound was garbled (I didn't try the fourth tape). Even the 'dirty heads' warning came on. Fortunately, I discovered this while playing around and not after some important event. I returned the tapes and tried standard grade Maxell tapes (without cleaning the heads) - The camcorder worked flawlessly. Coming from 8mm, the picture quality is incredible (through s-video to a 27" TV). I've had no trouble with various light conditions (like ambient indoor household lighting day or night, poorly lit street scenes, and in a high school gym). Only complaint: my old camcorder has individual fade, date/time, and manual focus buttons; This one requires menu traversing to do the same things (I think most mini-DV's are like this however). A BIG plus - this camcorder accepts analog input directly from my 8mm camcorder and VHS VCR. No other low-end digital camcorder can do this that I'm aware of (although the Sony TRV230 can). I've copied some of my old 8mm and VHS tapes onto miniDV (and then onto my PC for editing) with ease. The SmartMedia card is another plus since my digital camera already uses them and I have spares. Another plus will be the camera-controlled zoom mike (when it's available) - great for taping distant audio sources (like school shows) while reducing nearby noise. Update 2/26/02 - still working fine. Using Pinnacle Studio DV for editing. I'm amazed at the number of reviews that indicate playback problems and don't say whether they've tried a different brand of tape.
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